"Dear Kryon, I have heard that you should stay natural and not use the science on the planet for healing. It does not honor God to go to a doctor. After all, don't you say that we can heal with our minds? So why should we ever go to a doctor if we can do it ourselves? Not only that, my doctor isn't enlightened, so he has no idea about my innate or my spiritual body needs. What should I do?"

First, Human Being, why do you wish to put so many things in boxes? You continue to want a yes and no answer for complex situations due to your 3D, linear outlook on almost everything. Learn to think out of the 3D box! Look at the heading of this section [above]. It asks which one should you do. It already assumes you can't do both because they seem dichotomous.

Let's use some spiritual logic: Here is a hypothetical answer, "Don't go to a doctor, for you can heal everything with your mind." So now I will ask: How many of you can do that in this room right now? How many readers can do that with efficiency right now? All of you are old souls, but are you really ready to do that? Do you know how? Do you have really good results with it? Can you rid disease and chemical imbalance with your mind right now?

I'm going to give you a truth, whether you choose to see it or not. You're not ready for that! You are not yet prepared to take on the task of full healing using your spiritual tools. Lemurians could do that, because Pleiadians taught them how! It's one of the promises of God, that there'll come a day when your DNA works that efficiently and you will be able to walk away from drug chemistry and the medical industry forever, for you'll have the creator's energy working at 100 percent, something you saw within the great masters who walked the earth.

This will be possible within the ascended earth that you are looking forward to, dear one. Have you seen the news lately? Look out the window. Is that where you are now? We are telling you that the energy is going in that direction, but you are not there yet.

Let those who feel that they can heal themselves begin the process of learning how. Many will be appreciative of the fact that you have some of the gifts for this now. Let the process begin, but don't think for a moment that you have arrived at a place where every health issue can be healed with your own power. You are students of a grand process that eventually will be yours if you wish to begin the quantum process of talking to your cells. Some will be good at this, and some will just be planting the seeds of it.

Now, I would like to tell you how Spirit works and the potentials of what's going to happen in the next few years. We're going to give the doctors of the planet new inventions and new science. These will be major discoveries about the Human body and of the quantum attributes therein.

Look at what has already happened, for some of this science has already been given to you and you are actually using it. Imagine a science that would allow the heart to be transplanted because the one you have is failing. Of course! It's an operation done many times a month on this planet. That information came from the creator, did you realize that? It didn't drop off the shelf of some dark energy library to be used in evil ways.

So, if you need a new heart, Lightworker, should you go to the doctor or create one with your mind? Until you feel comfortable that you can replace your heart with a new one by yourself, then you might consider using the God-given information that is in the hands of the surgeon. For it will save your life, and create a situation where you stay and continue to send your light to the earth! Do you see what we're saying?

You can also alter that which is medicine [drugs] and begin a process that is spectacular in its design, but not very 3D. I challenge you to begin to use what I would call the homeopathic principle with major drugs. If some of you are taking major drugs in order to alter your chemistry so that you can live better and longer, you might feel you have no choice. "Well, this is keeping me alive," you might say. "I don't yet have the ability to do this with my consciousness, so I take the drugs."

In this new energy, there is something else that you can try if you are in this category. Do the following with safety, intelligence, common sense and logic. Here is the challenge: The principle of homeopathy is that an almost invisible tincture of a substance is ingested and is seen by your innate. Innate "sees" what you are trying to do and then adjusts the body's chemistry in response. Therefore, you might say that you are sending the body a "signal for balance." The actual tincture is not large enough to affect anything chemically - yet it works!

The body [innate] sees what you're trying to do and then cooperates. In a sense, you might say the body is healing itself because you were able to give it instructions through the homeopathic substance of what to do. So, why not do it with a major drug? Start reducing the dosage and start talking to your cells, and see what happens. If you're not successful, then stop the reduction. However, to your own amazement, you may often be successful over time.

You might be able to take the dosage that you're used to and cut it to at least a quarter of what it was. It is the homeopathy principle and it allows you to keep the purpose of the drug, but reduce it to a fraction of a common 3D dosage. You're still taking it internally, but now it's also signaling in addition to working chemically. The signal is sent, the body cooperates, and you reduce the chance of side effects.

You can't put things in boxes of yes or no when it comes to the grand system of Spirit. You can instead use spiritual logic and see the things that God has given you on the planet within the inventions and processes. Have an operation, save your life, and stand and say, "Thank you, God, for this and for my being born where these things are possible." It's a complicated subject, is it not? Each of you is so different! You'll know what to do, dear one. Never stress over that decision, because your innate will tell you what is appropriate for you if you're willing to listen. ….”

(Subjects: Big pharma [the drug companies of America] are going to have to change very soon or collapse. When you have an industry that keeps people sick for money, it cannot survive in the new consciousness., Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text version)

"THE BRIDGE OF SWORDS" – Sep 29, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: ... I'm in Canada and I know it, but I will tell those listening and reading in the American audience the following: Get ready! Because there are some institutions that are yet to fall, ones that don't have integrity and that could never be helped with a bail out. Again, we tell you the biggest one is big pharma, and we told you that before. It's inevitable. If not now, then in a decade. It's inevitable and they will fight to stay alive and they will not be crossing the bridge. For on the other side of the bridge is a new way, not just for medicine but for care. ....) - (Text Version)

Friday, June 29, 2012

(NaturalNews) According to two Merck scientists who filed a False Claims Act
complaint in 2010 -- a complaint which has just now been unsealed -- vaccine
manufacturer Merck knowingly falsified its mumps vaccine test data, spiked
blood samples with animal antibodies, sold a vaccine that actually promoted
mumps and measles outbreaks, and ripped off governments and consumers who
bought the vaccine thinking it was "95% effective."

• In order
to do this, Merck spiked the blood test with animal antibodies in order to
artificially inflate the appearance of immune system antibodies. As reported in
CourthouseNews.com:

Merck also
added animal antibodies to blood samples to achieve more favorable test results,
though it knew that the human immune system would never produce such
antibodies, and that the antibodies created a laboratory testing scenario that
"did not in any way correspond to, correlate with, or represent real life
... virus neutralization in vaccinated people," according to the
complaint. (http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/06/27/47851.htm)

• Merck
then used the falsified trial results to swindle the U.S. government out of
"hundreds of millions of dollars for a vaccine that does not provide adequate
immunization."

• Merck's
vaccine fraud has actually contributed to the continuation of mumps across
America, causing more children to become infected with mumps. (Gee, really?
This is what NaturalNews has been reporting for years... vaccines are actually
formulated to keep the outbreaks going because it's great for repeat business!)

• Merck
used its false claims of "95 percent effectiveness" to monopolize the
vaccine market and eliminate possible competitors.

• The Merck
vaccine fraud has been going on since the late 1990's, say the Merck
virologists.

• Testing
of Merck's vaccine was never done against "real-world" mumps viruses
in the wild. Instead, test results were simply falsified to achieve the desired
outcome.

• This
entire fraud took place "with the knowledge, authority and approval of
Merck's senior management."

Rather than
taking action on this false claims act, the U.S. government simply ignored it,
thereby protecting Merck's market monopoly instead of properly serving justice.
This demonstrates the conspiracy of fraud between the U.S. government, FDA
regulators and the vaccine industry.

Following
the unsealing of this 2010 False Claims Act, Chatom Primary Care, based in
Alabama, smelled something rotten. Three days ago, Chatom filed a lawsuit
against Merck. That lawsuit record is available here:

[Merck
engaged in] ...a decade-long scheme to falsify and misrepresent the true
efficacy of its vaccine.

Merck
fraudulently represented and continues to falsely represent in its labeling and
elsewhere that its Mumps Vaccine has an efficacy rate of 95 percent of higher.

In reality,
Merck knows and has taken affirmative steps to conceal -- by using improper
testing techniques and falsifying test data -- that its Mumps Vaccine is, and
has been since at least 1999, far less than 95 percent effective.

Merck
designed a testing methodology that evaluated its vaccine against a less
virulent strain of the mumps virus. After the results failed to yield Merck's
desired efficacy, Merck abandoned the methodology and concealed the study's
findings.

...incorporating
the use of animal antibodies to artificially inflate the results...

...destroying
evidence of the falsified data and then lying to an FDA investigator...

...threatened
a virologist in Merck's vaccine division with jail if he reported the fraud to
the FDA...

...the
ultimate victims here are the millions of children who every year are being
injected with a mumps vaccine that is not providing them with an adequate level
of protection. And while this is a disease that, according to the Centers for
Disease Control ('CDC'), was supposed to be eradicated by now, the failure in
Merck's vaccine has allowed this disease to linger, with significant outbreaks
continuing to occur.

Chatom
Primary Care also alleges that the fraudulent Merck vaccine contributed to the
2006 mumps outbreak in the Midwest, and a 2009 outbreak elsewhere. It says,
"there has remained a significant risk of a resurgence of mumps
outbreaks..."

This
investigation is only beginning

NaturalNews
has only begun to investigate this incredible breaking news about Merck and the
vaccine industry. We are pouring through the court documents to identify
additional information that may be relevant to this case, and we plan to bring
you that information soon.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

The US
Supreme Court Thursday upheld historic health care reforms but changed some of
the key provisions, in a major election-year victory for Democratic President
Barack Obama.

The
nation's top justices ruled that a key plank of Obama's domestic policy to
extend health insurance to some 32 million Americans was constitutional, but
imposed some limitations on extending aid to the nation's poorest.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

The Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) is encouraging patients to report their physicians if they suspect they are being prescribed medications forreasons other than their well-being. (JG Photo/Safir Makki)

If you’re
sick of paying for expensive prescription drugs at your physician’s urging, the
Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) said on Wednesday that it is ready to hear
your complaint.

“If there
are indications of [being prescribed] too expensive medicine, or if you go to
the doctor 10 times and get the same medicine over and over again [without
results], and the evidence is clear, please send us a written report,” said
Agus Purwadianto, head of IDI’s medical ethics council.

Agus said a
limited number of health economy experts in Indonesia to provide trustworthy
information and the reluctance of people to report doctors had led to many
doctors conspiring with the pharmaceutical industry, receiving kickbacks from
pharmacists for prescribing expensive drugs.

“There is
also a snob paradigm among people — that without expensive [medicine], they
won’t be healed.”

Agus said
IDI was very serious about supervising its doctors and preventing code of
conduct violations. The association recently gained more power to question
doctors who are accused of receiving bribes, as well as the alleged bribers.

“In the
past, we were only allowed to question the doctors and get a one-sided
explanation, but now we can summon both parties in the investigation,” he said.
“If it is proven, the doctor will be sanctioned.”

The 2009
Law on Medical Practice’s Article 62, which includes the doctor’s oath, states:
“I hereby promise to conduct my duties within ethical means and will not accept
from anyone, directly or indirectly, a pledge or a gift.”

The
International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group said it would impose stricter
regulations on its members to prevent bribery to doctors.

“We have
revised the ethics code of IPMG and tightened it,” Allen Doumit, head of IPMG's
market practices subcommittee, said on Wednesday.

Under this
code of conduct, the pharmaceutical industry is not allowed to offer gifts or
services to doctors and medical staff that might cause a conflict of interest.

If, for
example, a pharmaceutical company wanted to sponsor a doctor to attend seminar
or conference abroad, the doctor should leave just one day prior to the event
and return a day after its conclusion at the latest.

“We could
not send doctor a week before the event or on an additional trip that is not
related to the event,” Allen said.

Allen said
under the old code of conduct, pharmaceutical companies were not forbidden from
indulging doctors with lavish hotel suites or business class plane tickets, but
such offerings would be regulated under the new code.

“We hope
the government could be involved to supervise this,” Allen said.

Only 24
pharmaceutical companies out of more than 200 in Indonesia are members of IPMG.
Allen said that though many are not members of IPMG, all pharmaceutical
companies should heed the organization's ethics standards.

“We are
really serious in upholding the ethics. Recently we warned a pharmaceutical
company that sent flowers to a hospital.”

Coke is
utter junk, of course, but it can be terribly refreshing. I probably drink a
Diet Coke every other week. My "brand loyalty" is literally
unquestioned – it never occurs to me to buy any other cola, not that there ever
seems much of an opportunity to do so. Pepsi has a 9.5% share in the UK soft drinks market, far less than the 17% for Coke and even the 9.9% for Diet Coke.
Diet Pepsi lags with a pitiful 5.3%.

On the few
occasions I have bought another cola (even that word looks alien and
amputated), I've never been impressed. Fentiman's Curiosity Cola tastes flat
and monotone, with a lingering undercurrent that reminds me of diesel. One
ethically minded food and drinks company is launching a new cola in time for
the Olympics. But a lifetime of conditioning and marketing can often make these
products taste less like "the real thing" even though they may derive
more of their flavour from genuine kola nuts.

It's a
brave company that seeks to rival Coca-Cola. The drink has a presence in over
200 countries: "more than the UN itself", as one of its executives boasts. It's been the most valuable brand in the world for years. This is all a
long way from its origins in the 1880s, when a morphine-addicted veteran of the
American civil war concocted a cocaine and caffeine tonic which he claimed
cured headaches, impotence and, handily, morphine addiction. After a certain
amount of internal wrangling, a man named Asa Candler wound up with the rights
to sell the drink, and made a vast fortune from it. He marketed Coca-Cola with
a ferocity never seen before, and his commercial heirs have always followed his
lead.

Coke is now
the market leader in almost every country in the world, but rivals jostle with
it across its markets. Pepsi outsells it in parts of Canada, the Caribbean, the
Middle East and in Pakistan, whose cricket team is sponsored by Pepsi. Other
rivals around the world are called things like Zam Zam Cola, Parsi Cola, Mecca
Cola, Big Cola and the Indian Thums Up. On Madeira in the eastern Atlantic, a
Fanta variant called Laranjada outsells it, and the Scots used to drink more
Irn-Bru. Barr's lost its lead there in 2005, but throughout my childhood I
lived in a dissident soda market.

However
sketchy its ethics, Coke is a masterclass in the power of marketing and an
unanswerable witness to America's cultural hegemony during the last century.
But the company relies increasingly on other brands in its portfolio, and many
Americans and Europeans are drinking less of the main product. Are you
among them?

At first,
she adhered to a very strict diet. She became a vegan for a while and cut out
all dairy produce. She also added 'super-foods' to her diet and ate almost
entirely organic.

Vicky said:
"Fresh fruit, vegetables and juices are great, and frozen berries are
fantastic as a superfood.

"Turmeric
kind of makes cancer cells commit suicide and ginger and garlic are great to
cook with."

She
prepares all her food from scratch, makes her own body lotions from natural
ingredients and only uses chemical-free cleaners and detergents.

"I
decided that I was going to help myself and do as much as I could," she
said.

Another
element of her lifestyle is moderate exercise, which she believes was helpful
in her recovery from cancer.

Vicky made
her decision based on the side effects she could expect from Tamoxifen.

"It
was the worry of the drugs and the side effects, I didn't want to have to worry
about it, I wanted to be free," she said.

The
national research study is looking at how lifestyle can help prevent the
recurrence of breast cancer after surgery. It is the largest of its kind in the
world, involving 56 hospitals around the UK and 3,400 patients who have had the
disease.

For the
past four years, Vicky has provided blood and urine samples and filled in
regular questionnaires about her well-being, diet and lifestyle as part of the
national research.

She has
another year left of the trial and some findings are expected later this year
and the full results will be published next year.

Vicky is
hoping to mark her five-year remission in August 2013 and is getting ready to
marry her fiance Michael in September.

She added:
"People can die, or come back from it and enjoy life, you've just got to
be thankful you're still around. Make the most of life, everything will always
be alright in the end."

Dr Steve
Kelly, an oncologist specialising in treating patients with breast cancer,
based at Derriford Hospital, said: "Breast cancer deaths have been going
down steadily for over 20 years thanks to surgery, chemotherapy and
radiotherapy - all have helped.

"But
there are three things patients can do to help themselves, it doesn't guarantee
survival, but it does help.

"The
first is to exercise for thirty minutes three days a week, the second is to not
gain any weight and the third is to reduce fat intake.

"These
things help to reduce the chance of cancer coming back. For this patient, four
years on now, it is still early days."

Vicky's
father Dr John Sewart, aged 85, from Saltash, said: "I gave her advice
when she asked for it.

"I was
answering as a father first and a doctor second. It wasn't difficult, I agreed
with what she was planning to do, and I agreed with her decisions."

Shanghai.
After Wang Lan delivered, she brought home a baby girl and her placenta, which
she plans to eat in a soup — adopting an age-old practice in Chinese
traditional medicine.

The
health-giving qualities of placenta are currently creating a buzz in Western
countries, where some believe it can help ward off postnatal depression,
improve breast milk supply and boost energy levels.

But
placentophagy — the practice of eating one’s placenta after birth — is
relatively common in China, where it is thought to have anti-ageing properties,
and dates back more than 2,000 years.

“It is in
the refrigerator now and I am waiting for my mother to come and cook it to eat.
After cleaning, it can be stewed for soup, without that fishy smell,” Wang
said, adding she believed it would help her recover from delivery.

Qin
Shihuang, the first emperor of a unified China, is said to have designated
placenta as having health properties some 2,200 years ago, and during China’s
last dynasty, the dowager empress Cixi was said to have eaten it to stay young.

A classic
medical text from the Ming Dynasty (1368--1644) said placenta — which lines the
uterus and is key to the survival of the foetus — was “heavily nutritious” and
“if taken for the longer term... longevity will be achieved.”

China’s
state media says the practice of eating placenta has re-emerged over the past
decade. One maternity hospital in the eastern city of Nanjing reported that
about 10 percent of new parents took their placenta after childbirth.

Internet
postings swap recipes on how to prepare placenta. One popular health website
suggests soup, dumplings, meat balls or mixing it with other kinds of
traditional Chinese medicine.

While trade
in the organs has been banned since 2005, pills containing placentas ground
into powder are legally available in Chinese pharmacies — indicating unwanted
placenta is somehow making its way to drug companies.

“It is a
tonic to fortify the ‘qi’ and enrich the blood,” a traditional medicine doctor
at Shanghai’s Lei Yun Shang pharmacy said, referring to the “life force” that
practitioners believe flows through the body.

“Sales are
very good. Basically, every time we have supplies, they sell out very quickly,”
a clerk at the shop told AFP.

And it’s
not just mothers who want to eat the placenta.

One new
father in Shanghai who did not want to be named said his relatives were eager
to try the sought-after item. “My wife and I were still in the hospital... and
they ate it,” he said.

But strong
demand has created a thriving black market with hospitals, medical workers and
even mothers selling placentas in violation of the law.

Last year,
authorities investigated a hospital in the southern city of Guangzhou for
selling placentas for 20 yuan ($2) apiece.

“They
(nurses) take the money and use it to buy breakfast,” a source told a the local
Xin Kuai newspaper.

They fetch
a higher price in other parts of China like the eastern city of Jinan, where
dealers ask as much as 300 yuan per placenta, most sourced from hospitals, the
Jinan Times said last year.

Last month,
South Korean customs said they had uncovered multiple attempts to illegally
import over 17,000 capsules apparently containing the powdered flesh of dead
babies.

Experts
have said the pills may actually be made from human placenta, raising concerns
that China’s trade in the organs has started to go international.

Some
people, meanwhile, are averse to the idea of eating the organ.

“I know
it’s good for health, but the idea of eating human flesh is just disgusting. I
cannot do it,” said Shanghai accountant Grace Jiang, who opted to leave the
placenta after giving birth to her son.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The race to
make fake meat just got interesting. Two scientists on opposite sides of the
world both claim to be on the verge of serving up the first lab-grown hamburger
– and saving the planet in the process. The new reality is so close, you can
almost taste it

This is a disruptive technology. ‘I think the meat industry will be an adversary, and maybe a dangerous one,’ Mark Post says. Photograph: Liz McBurney forthe Guardian

As mission
statements go, it takes some beating. Scrawled on a whiteboard are the words:
"We will change how the Earth looks from space!" It surpasses
"Don't be evil" (the motto of Google, just down the road), and in
terms of hubris it trumps even that of Facebook (also just round the corner):
"Move fast and break things!"

In this
anonymous laboratory on a low-rise industrial estate in Menlo Park, 40km south
of San Francisco, there is a whiff of revolution in the air. There is a whiff
of madness, too, but after a few hours in the company of the man leading this
intriguing Silicon Valley startup, one begins to wonder if it is the rest of
the world that is insane.

Professor
Patrick Brown could easily be taken for a deranged visionary. He is intense,
driven and unfazed by critics and rivals. This 57-year-old ultra-lean,
sandal-wearing, marathon-running vegan wants to stop the world eating meat. Not
through persuasion or coercion, but by offering us carnivores something better
for the same price or less.

The fake
meat business has been around for decades, of course, but it has never really
taken off. That is because the products out there, usually based on some sort
of reconstituted soy or fungal gloop, taste as disgusting as they look. They
are usually expensive as well.

But the
meat-fakers say they are on the verge of a breakthrough, that there is a real
possibility that a new era of fake meat – nutritious, cheap and
indistinguishable from the real thing, made either of synthesised animal tissue
or derived from plant material – may be upon us.

'I have zero interest in making a new food for vegans,’ says molecular biologist Patrick Brown. ‘I’m making a food for people who want meat.' Photograph:Winni Wintermeyer

Brown, a
specialist in the genetics of cancer, is a tenured Stanford University molecular biologist, a member of the National Academy and the founder of a non-profit academic publisher. For two years, he has been working on creating
synthesised meat and dairy products. "I have zero interest in making a new
food just for vegans," Brown says. "I am making a food for people who
are comfortable eating meat and who want to continue eating meat. I want to
reduce the human footprint on this planet by 50%."

What Brown
is talking about is a revolution that will remake our relationship with our
planet, and with our fellow animals.

Eating meat
is bad for the environment, of that there is no doubt. And the moral arguments
against killing animals are compelling. Humans currently slaughter about 1,600 mammals and birds every second for food – that is half a trillion lives a year,
plus trillions more fish, crustaceans and molluscs. The total biomass of all
the world's livestock is almost exactly twice that of humanity itself. And
while crops that feed people cover just 4% of the Earth's usable surface (land
that is not covered by ice or water, or is bare rock), animal pastureland
accounts for a full 30%. Our meat, in other words, weighs twice as much as we
do and takes seven times as much land to grow.

But it is
animal suffering that usually turns people vegetarian. Meat farming is, say its
critics, an obsolete technology that produces a nutrient-dense food in just
about the most inefficient (and cruel) way imaginable. The problem – the big problem
– is that, when given a choice, most of us like to eat meat regardless. It may
be inefficient, dirty and cruel, but there is no denying that cooked animal
flesh tastes good.

The idea of
synthetic meat has been around for a long time. In 1932, Winston Churchill
stated, "Fifty years hence, we shall escape the absurdity of growing a
whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts
separately under a suitable medium." But fake meat, aka schmeat or
in-vitro meat, is one of those ideas that, like lunar colonies, fusion power
and flying cars, has yet to cross the threshold between fantasy and reality.

That is
because flesh is hard to fake. Meat, essentially muscle tissue (unless you're
talking about offal), is a complex material. A steak, for instance, consists of
tens of thousands of muscle fibres, blood vessels, nerves, layers of fat and
connective tissue, gristle and perhaps bone. A slab of sirloin is a chunk of
incredibly complex machinery, and it is this complexity that is giving the
fakers a headache.

The
hundreds of chemicals in meat give it its flavour, and its flavour and texture
changes depending on how it is cooked. The globular muscle protein myoglobin,
for instance, gives raw meat its characteristic pink colour and oxidises when
cooked to become a brownish grey.

Fresh raw
meat is almost tasteless. But when heated, the myoglobin changes colour and a
series of changes, called Maillard reactions, combine amino acids (the building
blocks of proteins) with sugars to give cooked meat its distinctive, tangy
flavour. Biting into a chicken thigh involves not merely the ingestion of
protein (easy to synthesise), but a complex interplay of aromas, textures and
tastes. Synthesising all this in a lab is no easy task.

One
approach is to manipulate plant material to create a meat-facsimile; this is
what Brown is doing. The trouble is, I am not allowed to tell you very much
about it. Before being shown around his lab, I have to sign non-disclosure
agreements.

"Look,
I don't want to come across as a jerk," says Brown, a serious man who
seems genuinely terrified that his project may yet be undone, "but I don't
want things appearing in the media that will stop this happening."

When Brown
appeared at a major science conference in Vancouver earlier this year, he gave
away few details, save to say that the meat industry is "a sitting
duck". And he's right. There is seriously big money hovering around Sand Hill Foods, the provisional name of Brown's startup.

The other
approach is to grow actual meat in a factory, animal muscle tissue sans the
animal itself, and this is being pioneered in Europe.

"What
are we going to call it? Well, we thought long and hard, and came to the
conclusion we should simply call it meat," says Dr Mark Post, an affable
54-year-old Dutchman. When we meet at the University of Maastricht, there is no
NDA to sign, no secrecy and a lot of self-doubt. Like Brown, Post is motivated
by concern for the environment, but the two scientists could not be more
different. For a start, the Dutchman is a meat-loving amateur chef. Then there
is his admission: "This may not succeed… My family think I am crazy."

At that
Canadian conference, Brown was critical of Post's methodology, dismissing it as
too expensive and complex to work. The two scientists gave a joint
presentation, but there was clearly no love lost between them. The Dutchman
concedes his American rival may win the race to produce the world's first
viable synthesised meat – but suggests he might have trouble selling his idea.

"He is
a genius," Post tells me, "but he has a personality issue. He is very
defensive. He is much smarter than I am, but he is not going to get this across
to the public. He needs a PR adviser."

‘What are we going to call it?’ says scientist Mark Post.‘We thought longand hard, and came up with "meat".' Photograph: Judith Jockel

Post is
following up on about a decade's worth of work to try to culture living muscle
tissue in the lab. Back in the early noughties, Nasa sponsored a scientist
called Morris Benjaminson to see if it was possible to grow real meat in a test
tube. The idea was to find a way to feed astronauts on long space flights.
Benjaminson got as far as growing a small fish fillet. "Did you taste
it?" I asked him. "No way," was his not entirely reassuring
response. The project ground to a halt.

Since then,
the baton has been taken up by a series of Dutch teams, thanks to a €2m grant
from the government. The animal rights group Peta has offered $1m to the first
group that produces a convincing animal-free burger.

Post's
small team has secured private venture capital funding as well. He won't tell
me who the funder is, save to say "he" isn't British, that I've
certainly heard of him and that "he does not like to be associated with
failure". At the Vancouver conference, Post made headlines with his claim
that Heston Blumenthal would be asked to cook the world's first synthetic
hamburger this autumn, at a London hotel.

So how do
you grow meat in a vat?

As a
recipe, it is unusual, hard to follow and at first glance somewhat
unappetising. But if its creator is right, in a few decades our descendants
will be puzzled – indeed horrified – that we ever did it any other way.

First, you
take a cow, pig or indeed just about any animal. Up to now, this animal will
have led a charmed life, with several acres of grazing at its disposal, the
finest winter feed and no abuse.

Then you
kill it. The creation of in-vitro meat does require the slaughter of animals,
but the point is that, in theory, a single specimen could provide the seed
material for hundreds of tonnes of meat. Only a tiny fraction of the farm
animals alive today would be needed to supply the entire human race.

The next
stage is to extract a sliver of muscle tissue and transfer this blob of red
matter to a petri dish. Then you use a mixture of chemistry and manual
manipulation to tease apart the cells on the dish. What you are looking for are
skeletal muscle satellite cells – stem cells – all-purpose repair modules that
are there to create new tissue in case of damage. It is satellite cells in your
muscles that swing into action should you injure yourself in the gym or have a
nasty fall – dividing, then dividing again in rapid succession to create new
muscle.

When you
have a few thousand of these satellite cells, you place them in a warm broth,
consisting of a mixture of 100 or so synthetic nutrients together with serum
extracted from cow foetuses. "That will have to change in the final product,"
Post says (an admission that, in yuck terms, "foetal serum" is up
there with quivering blobs of flesh). Then you wait for nature to take its
course.

After a few
days, your microscopic ball of cells has divided into a thin sheet of muscle
tissue big enough to cover the bottom of a flask. At this stage the dividing
cells need to be checked for genetic stability. It may be possible to tweak the
growing tissue to produce, say, a surfeit of healthy polyunsaturated fatty
acids. Fake meat could be a health food, Post says.

After a
week there are enough cells to cover 10 flasks. Then, with extreme care, you
wrap these little slivers of unformed muscle around Velcro "anchors"
and, in a touch of pure Mary Shelley, you give them a jolt of electricity.
"This is very good," Post says. "They actually start to contract
spontaneously."

The creation of in-vitro meat does require the slaughter of animals, but in

theory a single specimen could provide the seed material for hundreds

of tonnes of meat. Photograph: Liz McBurney for the Guardian

Currently,
this technology can produce small strips of muscle, a couple of centimetres
long and a few millimetres thick. The process is time-consuming and labour
intensive – and harvesting enough of these beef mini-fillets to squash into a
hamburger patty (several hundred will be needed) will cost in the region of
£200,000.

It is at
this stage that Blumenthal and his griddle pan will come in. "Yes, it's a
publicity stunt – of course it is," Post admits. "It's proof of
concept, nothing more." If all goes well, a Famous Veggie – the identity
of whom is unclear, but Post perks up when I suggest Gwyneth Paltrow – will
stand in front of the cameras and take a big bite out of the £200,000
beefburger. The idea is that, once Post has demonstrated to the world that his
stem-cell technique works, the money will come pouring in.

To make
bigger chunks of meat, Post will need to make synthetic fat ("actually
quite easy") and grow the fillets on some sort of biodegradable scaffold,
"fed" with nutrients pumped through artificial polysaccharide
"veins". Otherwise the centre of the fillet will become gangrenous
and die.

The
technique is viable for any species.

"Could
you make fake panda?"

"Sure."

"What
about human?"

"Don't
go there."

Eventually,
Post envisages a future where huge quantities of high-quality meat are gown in
vats, incorporating not only muscle fibres but layers of real fat and even
synthetic bone. "In 25 years," he says, "real meat will come in
a packet labelled, 'An animal has suffered in the production of this product'
and it will carry a big eco tax. I think in 50-60 years it may be forbidden to
grow meat from livestock."

This will
happen only if consumers can be weaned off the real thing. The yuck factor will
play a part, but all the evidence is that, as far as consumers are concerned,
price, taste and safety – in roughly that order – determine their bulk-food
purchases. Few people enquire too carefully how their regular meat was
produced, after all. The market for ethically-reared free-range meat is, in
global terms, tiny. In terms of yuckiness, real meat is at the top of the
scale.

Few
outsiders have tasted fake animal products. Back in Menlo Park, Brown lets me
try one. He is collaborating with a number of well-known, non-vegetarian chefs
to get the taste, texture and mouth feel just right. After all, Brown has not
eaten anything made from an animal for decades.

I am not
allowed to say what I tried, nor which chef helped create it, and certainly not
what it tasted like. But I can say this: I would have had no idea it wasn't
"real". Quorn this is not.

In the US,
half of the total market for meat is in processed products – minced and ground
beef, reconstituted chicken, sausages and so on – and the proportion in Europe
is only slightly lower. Both Post and Brown say that they will start with
processed "meat" and, as the technology matures, work up from there
to fillets of steak, chicken breasts and so on.

What about
religious concerns? Could Jews and Muslims eat fake pork and Hindus fake beef?
Surprisingly, the answer seems to be a qualified yes. Post has had discussions with
imams and rabbis, and they have said that, as long as there are sufficient
steps between source and product, the "meat" will be kosher or halal.
"I never expected that," he says.

This is a
disruptive technology – one that threatens to overturn a powerful and
established order. The global meat industry, which is populated by some very
ruthless people, is going to fight this hard. "I think the meat industry
will be an adversary, and maybe a dangerous one," Post says.

In his
recent book, The Better Angels Of Our Nature (Allen Lane, £30), the Harvard
psychologist Steven Pinker predicts that meat-eating may be the final frontier
in what he calls the "rights revolution": the extraordinary decline
in human violence and cruelty seen in the past 300 years.

Pinker
argues that the brutal reality of "meat hunger" (it is the eating of
cooked meat that gave humans our huge brains, as cooking unleashes a torrent of
nutrients otherwise indigestible in the raw form) will mean that the
"vegetarian revolution" may never arrive.

But if that
meat hunger can be sated at a reasonable cost, with something indistinguishable
from the real deal, then one of the greatest revolutions in human history may
be upon us.

If Brown
and Post are successful, the global meat industry may find itself in the same
position as the makers of fax machines and typewriters were a generation ago,
rendered obsolete by a new and better technology. In which case the world
really will look different from space. And whoever wins the race to produce the
first viable alternative for a foodstuff that has been part of human life for
200,000 years had better watch their backs.

".. Right now, the energy on this planet is filled with millenniums of war, old energy fighting, machismo, and intolerance. This, then, is what the DNA adjusts to at your birth. Whereas you are designed for 100 percent DNA efficiency, right now it's at 30 percent. And that, dear one, is what is changing, for the DNA is now starting to operate at a higher efficiency because there's a consciousness shift going on. You're seeing it first, of course, with the ones who are currently being born. At their first breath, they're now at 35 percent, and this translates into a Human Being that is far more aware and more conceptual at a far earlier age. It's almost as though they have an instinctual awareness of overall Humanism, instead of having to learn it all over again, as you did.

We have told you about these new children, and that is why your children are so unusual and you know they are. Many in the audience who have grandchildren are really seeing it; the kids are different. So you might say, "Well it's too bad that we can't do that ourselves, raise our DNA efficiency." Well, you can! For the energy of the planet is alert and ready to send the signal to the old soul who starts to understand that they can change their own fields through the templates that float in them, through consciousness, pure intent, and through that which is compassion. You can change the quantum "print" of DNA with compassion! We have said that from the beginning, so let me summarize this in simple words that are not scientific. Go slow, my partner. Make this succinct. [Kryon talking to Lee] "Recalibration of Gaia"– Mar 18, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll)

The New 'Message' from Space:

Unlock to 44 percent!

Let me tell you what the message is that is being communicated: Unlock to 44 percent! This is the message: The Human race has passed the marker and is ready for the next step in evolution. I am talking about the old soul. You are the ones who will be first to get this message. It is you, and some of your "old soul" children, who are starting to feel and accept this!

Let me tell you in this lesson today that the first thing that this unlocking will begin to create is what we're going to call Akashic acuity. You're going to start remembering, and it's about time. Can you celebrate this? It's about time that when you're born you don't start from scratch, in the dark, and doing everything all over again. Instead, you remember!

I want to talk to some individuals who are listening to this and are in this room. Have your grandchildren had the audacity to tell you who they used to be? Don't raise your hand; I know you're here. They feel it, and they know it, and out of the mouths of these babes come the most profound information that this planet has ever heard! They knew who they were! Some will point their fingers at you and say, “Don't you remember? I was your mum in another life.”That's a bit disconcerting, isn't it? "The Energy of the Future" - Dec 7, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

World Bank

PNPM Generasi Sehat dan Cerdas -PNPM Generasi is an innovative pilot program launched by the Government of Indonesia in July 2007 designed to accelerate achievement of three Millennium Development Goals: universal basic education, reduction in child mortality, and improvement in maternal health. Villages participating in PNPM Generasi commit to improving twelve basic health and education indicators through the use of annual block grants averaging USD 8,400 per village.

Red Cross

Indonesian Red Cross

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (right) meets with the new Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) chairman Jusuf Kalla, his former deputy. Kalla discussed the PMI’s plans for the next five years with Yudhoyono. Presidential Office/Editiawarman

AIDS DAY: A girl is pictured among some of 1,000 inflated condoms during the World AIDS Day campaign in Jakarta on Saturday. Indonesia marked the day with the launch of its first national campaign to promote the use of condoms. (JP/R. Berto Wedhatama)

Animals / Species ....

Health inspectors with special wardrobes take samples from a chicken for avian influenza tests in Tamangapa village, Makassar, on Saturday. The activity was part of a simulation on how to handle an avian influenza pandemic. (JP/Andi Hajramurni)

Clean Water

GIFT FROM EARTH: Almost half of Jakarta's residents use groundwater as their main source of clean water due to a lack of access to treated piped water. Water comes from wells like the one this family in Kampung Bahari, North Jakarta are using (photo above), or mechanic pumps like this one in Kampung Melayu, South Jakarta. (JP/P.J. Leo)

Nestly provide free medical services provided by their Cikupa plant in cooperation with the Honoris Hospital, Tangerang. More than 150 disadvantaged residents who live near the factory received medical check-ups and were provided with the medication they needed free of charge.

Disabled Scouts Jamboree

SCOUT'S HONOR: Stefanus Thomas Suyanto of Jakarta reads the scout's code of honor during Monday's opening ceremony of the National Disabled Scouts Jamboree in Cibubur, South Jakarta. About 4,000 boys and girls from 33 provinces took part in the event. JP/J.Adiguna